1,200 hl of 1st Brew Released from New K450bn Zambian

Zambian Breweries Plc. has officially offloaded 1,200 hectolitres into the market from the first brewing of its new K450 billion Ndola Brewery.

Zambian Breweries’ Plc. Managing Director, Mr. Anele Malumo, was joined over the weekend by members of staff from the Ndola Brewery to taste and officially release the first brew from the new plant in Ndola.

He said the brewery was fast becoming a reality, and it was certainly exciting times in the life of Zambian Breweries Plc. to finally be able to taste and offload the 1st brew from such a huge investment.

“We are all very excited with the fact that the brewery is finally coming alive and this is being evidenced today as we taste and officially offload into the market the very first brew from our one million hectolitre plant,” Malumo said.

Adding: “The first brew is here. We hope this will ease the supply challenges that we have experienced the last few weeks.”

Zambian Breweries Plc. has struggled in the recent past with insufficient capacity. Even when both its old Ndola Brewery and the Lusaka Brewery were operating at full capacity, the country’s largest brewer had been unable to meet the high consumer demand for alcoholic beverages, resulting in complaints from both consumers and retail customers. The company is now confident that with the new brewery coming online, it will be able to produce sufficient beverage quantities to meet the high demands of its customers.

Production is expected to commence at a low rate and gradually increase over the coming weeks to a rate of 10,000 hectolitres a week (approximately 400,000 hectolitres per annum) until the end of the year, when the company will stop production in the old Ndola Brewery.

Full production capacity is expected to be reached by April 2013, after the commissioning of a new packaging line, the installation of which will begin in January 2013.